Current events

It was over 400 years ago that Galileo Galilei first looked through his handmade telescope and observed the cloud bands that the planet is now famous for. The red gas giant of our solar system was revealed to be surrounded by swirling clouds, including one bright red spot–a cyclone of epic proportions that has been… Read more »

This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published by Victoria Kohout in August 2017, and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. Chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. Your grandmother’s perfume. Newly cut grass. Each of the listed descriptions is extremely different but can be linked together by one fundamental thread–smell…. Read more »

Being a teacher is one of the many hats that graduate students across the country wear during their career. As a graduate student who has taught several science courses, I know that keeping students engaged is always a challenge, particularly in required and introductory courses. While I have taught different levels of undergraduates, from freshman… Read more »

This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published for Earth Day 2017 and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. When scientists communicate with the public about politics, they often frame the issue as “science vs. politics.” For instance, some scientists champion speaking truth to power, while others suggest that they stay out of… Read more »

Dr. Yvonne Lai is well known for her work at IU’s Gill Center for Biomolecular Science. However, she and her collaborators are also making waves in the business world with the growth of their startup company Anagin Inc., a promising pharmaceutical venture located in Indianapolis. Dr. Lai’s research focuses on novel drug therapies for post-traumatic stress… Read more »

Typically when you think about a bunch of academics discussing environmental change, it has an air of doom and gloom. The projections aren’t promising: the global temperature is predicted to rise 0.2 °C each decade, resulting mainly from anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases, and this will continue to result in rising sea levels and unpredictable,… Read more »

Following the school shooting in Florida at the end of February, President Trump advocated for the re-establishment of “mental asylums”, also known as psychiatric hospitals, citing a much-needed improvement of the mental health system and as a solution to gun violence in America. In order to contextualize the President’s claims, in this blog post, I’ll… Read more »

A profile of IU professor Sharlene Newman in celebration of Black History Month Any glance at the demographics tells us that African American women are among the least represented of any group in STEM disciplines. Such is true in the field of psychological and brain sciences, where Sharlene Newman is the only African American professor… Read more »

On Sunday, January 28, 2018, there was a significant explosion in a chemistry laboratory. Fortunately, no one was injured due to the laboratory being vacant at the moment of the explosion, but the fume hood where it occurred was severely damaged. The safety sash, which consists of four safety glass panels at the front of… Read more »

2017 was a good year for ScIU. We exceeded our goal of publishing one post per week, and published a total of 56 blog posts! Traffic to our website has increased by 53% per post since fall of 2016, and our list of subscribers continues to grow! A few posts in particular received a lot… Read more »